New Jersey has the second toughest gun laws in the country. The first facet of Christie’s plan seeks to make them even stricter. This includes banning future purchases of the Barrett .50 Caliber; strengthening the state’s existing background check requirement by mandating that mental health records are included in the instant background check process at the time of a firearm purchase; and requiring firearms purchasers to present a valid government photo ID, along with the already mandatory Firearms Purchaser Identification Card.

Banning the Barrett .50 is stupid. Criminals don’t use them (except when they’re exported by the ATF to Mexican drug cartels). They weigh 25 pounds and cost $10K. They’re a boogeyman of the anti-gun left, who don’t like guns that are big. Or small. Or any at all.

Mandating mental health records being included in the background check is a step towards the gun confiscation New York has already seen – it will mean seizing guns for seeking help, it will mean denying Constitutional rights and the natural right of self-defense to those who’ve asked for help. The point isn’t to keep guns from crazies, it’s to keep guns from everyone.

Firearms purchasers already have to present a valid government photo ID.

For those unaware of it, New Jersey requires you to ask the government permission before buying a gun. You have to have a purchaser ID card – the state has to give you permission if you want to exercise a right. The application form can be viewed here.

The purpose is so that authorities can decide who gets to exercise rights and who doesn’t. These laws were passed predominately on the notion that the white ruling class needed to keep the black people (and poor whites) down. Now the Ruling Class simply chooses to keep the Country Class down.

At the announcement of Christie’s NJ SAFE Taskforce in January in the aftermath of Newtown, he talked about targeting and treating the root causes of violence.

There are three proposals listed, all of which are vague, but all of which actually seem to do something not entirely useless, while not actually infringing on Second Amendment rights. Actually looking at mental health isn’t a bad idea.

And then Chris Christie, who is a Republican when it suits him capable of tackling corruption when it suits him, but apparently very good at being a nanny-stater, comes up with this:

According to the Governor, too often lost in the debate about controlling gun violence in our society is the almost constant exposure young children and adults have to graphic violence. Part-three of his plan includes;

Requiring that retailers post at the point of sale the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ERSB) ratings. Additionally, requiring retailers to develop, maintain and conspicuously display their policy on selling video games with an M or AO rating.

Requiring Consent of a Legal Guardian. This is not different than the kind of parental supervision expected when a child under the age of 18 goes to see an R rated movie, Christie is requiring that a legal guardian provide consent when a minor purchases or rents a video game that has a rating of “Mature” or “Adult Only.”

If it’s a problem, it’s a problem for parents. They need to be the ones dealing with it. If parents groups are mad, they need to pressure retailers into meeting their demands (and many will happily do so, showing how caring they are, and thus generating a feeling of well-being among their customers).

And if you can’t buy it at a store, it doesn’t matter. This may come as a shock, but you can buy video games online.

The main sponsor on the U.S. legislation that banned many assault weapons in the 1990s is now talking about regulating violent video games in the future.

Speaking to an audience of 500 people in her hometown of San Francisco, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that game publishers need to make voluntary actions to avoid glorifying guns and violence following the Newtown elementary school massacre in December.

“If Sandy Hook doesn’t [make game publishers change] … then maybe we have to proceed, but that is in the future,” said Feinstein.

She went on to claim that video games play “a very negative role for young people, and the industry ought to take note of that.”

Never mind that SCOTUS already said no.

In 2011, the Supreme Court of the United States struck a California law that would ban the sale of violent games to minors. The court voted 7-2 to block the law based on the protection afford to expression under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

And of course there are Republican busybodies as well. What they miss is that it’s a cultural argument to have without resorting to laws. While they are made to understand it by their constituents when it comes to the Second Amendment, they also need to be made to understand it when it comes to the First.

In January, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said that he believes “video games [are] a bigger problem than guns because video games affect people.” Last month, Rep. Diane Black (R.-Tenn.) claimed that the perpetrator in the Sandy Hook shooting was fueled by “unprecedented levels of violent games, music, and so on.”

Even if individually those statements have some grain of truth, there’s no excuse for the government, which was established to protect rights, to use force it was granted to destroy rights. They don’t seem to push for restrictions, but they certainly don’t sound like defenders of liberty.

In a series of bills Christie seeks to impose or strengthen criminal penalties when it comes to selling firearms to convicted criminals, possessing a firearm with the intent to unlawfully transfer, hiring a “straw purchaser,” unlawfully possessing ammunition and engaging in firearms trafficking, among other areas.

This crap gets really shady really fast. He’s not going to arrest Eric Holder the next time he comes to Jersey, so I’m not impressed.

Beyond that, these are sketchy laws, most of which are already illegal at the federal level, and probably at the NJ state level as well. Obama doesn’t enforce them at the federal level, so maybe Chris Christie could apply some pressure there and demand the feds to their job. That might be a better start, rather than going after people still barely able to exercise their rights in NJ. Of course, that’s assuming he’s not completely anti-Second Amendment.

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I am sure that Christie is a RINO, in political beliefs and size as well.
In the article the senator from Tennessee wants to ban certain types of video games. Why not do background checks on the people who purchase them…………?????